


The Silence Between

by lady_ragnell



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plot What Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:10:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin would do anything to get Arthur to trust him again, but he'd never expected this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Silence Between

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** orgasm denial, some elements of D/s, some facets could be seen as light painplay
> 
> Written for [this prompt](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/29719.html?thread=28159767#t28159767) at kinkme_merlin.
> 
> Title from "No Light, No Light" by Florence + the Machine.

It takes a week for Merlin, desperate, to break the silence. (Not that Arthur’s silent: he snaps his orders and growls at his knights and pretends, when everyone else is around, to tease Merlin as usual even if there’s a vicious edge to it that only Merlin notices. It feels silent, though, Merlin choking on everything Arthur didn’t give him the chance to say.) “Please, tell me what I can do,” he says in the evening when he can almost see Arthur drawing breath to dismiss him.

“You’ve done quite enough from what I can tell,” Arthur answers, cool and collected. He won’t even _look_ at him.

Merlin wonders if it would help to kneel, to beg, to just give Arthur time, or if this is what their destiny’s been reduced to, living alongside each other but pretending they’re almost strangers. It isn’t even being Arthur’s bedmate that he misses, but the easy companionship of their evenings and the way Arthur would smile at him sometimes. “Anything. Anything I can do that might possibly make up for …”

“For what, exactly, Merlin? For practicing sorcery? Or for _lying_ to me for five years?”

“I’m sorry for all of it. Please, Arthur. I’ll do anything.”

Arthur looks out the window, but Merlin knows him well enough to see his shoulders relax. “Anything?”

“I’m yours. Anything.” He winces. He’s always said too much to Arthur, when they’re alone, even though he knows Arthur doesn’t need to hear it. Then again, maybe he does tonight.

“I don’t doubt your allegiance, Merlin. Just your honesty.”

“I’m sorry for lying.” That he’ll say as many times as Arthur wants to hear it.

This time, Arthur nods and stands up. “You’ll show it. Get on the bed.”

Merlin blinks, because he’d never thought he’d hear those words again, and they confuse him, coming now as they do, with Arthur smiling tightly at him for the first time in a week like he’s come to a decision. “Right. Yeah.” He stumbles over, kicking off his boots as he goes, and sits down on the edge.

“Clothes off first, Merlin, honestly,” says Arthur, arms crossed, and Merlin stands again and strips off, keeping his eyes on Arthur except while he pulls his shirt over his head. When he’s naked and fidgeting naked on the bed, Arthur calmly takes off his clothes like he does at the end of every day and walks over to him. “It’s about the lying, do you understand that?” Merlin nods. “You want to make it up to me?”

If Arthur wants to take it out in spanks or marks or a rough fuck, like they’ve taken out their anger on each other before, Merlin won’t say no. It’s familiar, in its own way, and they’re equals in the bed like they are nowhere else even if it feels odd doing this without the usual easy affection. “I said anything, didn’t I?”

“Then you’ll follow two very simple instructions.”

“Which are?”

“Don’t lie, and don’t come.”

Merlin shivers, unable to help himself. He’s heard those last few words before, after he and Arthur discovered how much he likes it when he has to wait, how much better it is when he’s almost crying with how badly he needs it, overstimulated and overwhelmed and Arthur the only thing keeping him tethered and the only thing he needs to tip over the edge. “Yes,” he agrees, and Arthur joins him in the bed.

It’s strangely solemn and silent. Arthur keeps him close but doesn’t kiss him, eyes very wide and very blue and Merlin just looks back until he has to lean close, nuzzle against the side of Arthur’s face, Arthur’s hair tickling his nose. When Arthur turns away to his side and hands Merlin the oil they keep under the pillow, Merlin knows what he’s being asked, and he takes his time preparing Arthur, fingers slipping in while he buries his nose in the back of Arthur’s neck and breathes, keeps his mind on Arthur’s pleasure and not his own. “Now, Merlin,” says Arthur after a while, voice deep and rough.

Merlin doesn’t question it, just slicks himself up with the rest of the oil on his palm and slides inside gentle and easy. Arthur doesn’t ask for more, just reaches back to rest a hand on Merlin’s hip, so Merlin just rocks into him until Arthur comes, clenching around him. He pauses, his own pleasure spiking, and breathes to calm himself until Arthur tightens the hold on his hip and encourages him to start moving again.

This time, Merlin scrambles for leverage and makes it rougher, and soon enough Arthur is getting hard again, grimacing a bit where he thinks Merlin can’t see before getting lost to the pleasure, hand drifting down to his cock. It takes him longer to come, and Merlin is gritting his teeth by the end of it—a week without, too miserable to take care of himself much, is a lot for them.

A few thrusts after Arthur comes the second time, Merlin is unceremoniously shoved away, which means Arthur is done for the night. When they’ve done it before, that’s Merlin’s cue to get himself off while Arthur rolls over and watches, pleased that he’s held off, but when Merlin reaches down, Arthur turns over quick as lightning, still panting from the fuck, and grabs his arm. “I _told_ you not to come,” he says, and there’s no give in it at all.

For a second, Merlin thinks about telling him to fuck off, that he may be Merlin’s master but he can’t boss him about in bed, and that Merlin denying himself can’t possibly be a condition of Arthur trusting him again because it makes no _sense_ , but he calms himself and looks Arthur in the eyes. He said “anything,” and there must be a reason. He doesn’t understand it now, tired and aroused and so worn out from the past week, but perhaps he will later. He slowly raises his hands until Arthur can see them both. “Okay. I’m sorry, I won’t.”

“Good,” says Arthur, and there’s just the smallest bit of warmth in his tone as he relaxes back, drowsy and pliant from coming twice. “Clean us up, would you?”

Merlin spends a second thinking of his dignity and his bowlegged walk to the water bowl, cock still heavy between his legs, but he’s doing as Arthur asks. “Yes, sure.”

When he starts to get out of bed, though, Arthur grabs his arm again. “I said clean us up, Merlin,” he says, and Merlin doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.

He’s awake long after Arthur falls asleep, jaw clenched as he tries to think of anything, anything but how much he just wants to _touch_.

Arthur wakes him with his mouth on Merlin’s cock in the morning, and pulls off when Merlin is letting out desperate whines, waiting for the words or any encouragement at all. “Get my breakfast,” he says, sounding unconcerned even though Merlin can see the tent in the breeches he’d pulled on some time before Merlin woke.

Merlin has to breathe into the pillow for five minutes before he can move without feeling as if he’s about to come, and it takes another ten to dress and stagger out of the room, by which time Arthur is already dressed and reading papers at his table, a smirk pulling out of his mouth.

It’s a battle of wills, after that. Merlin _could_ call an end to it, to the humiliation of spending some mornings walking around the castle desperately aroused when Gaius at least has guessed that he’s denying himself if his tactful questions over dinner are anything to go by, but there’s something behind this, something behind the fact that a week goes past, then ten days, then a fortnight, and while Arthur asks him to stay some nights, fucks him and sucks him and asks for the same in return, he never tells him to come. It can’t just be punishment, because every day Merlin that feels more frantic, more as if he might come untouched if the right person so much as grabs his shoulder, Arthur relaxes a little, smiles at him with a little more warmth, teases him a little more like normal, looks at him as if he’s … proud, somehow.

That’s what intrigues Merlin as two weeks turn into three and Arthur starts kissing him again. It’s what keeps him holding on. It isn’t just a punishment, not really, because now when he curls in on himself and chokes out noises that edge on sobs, Arthur will sometimes pet his hair, tender and sweet, and hush him until he can stop shaking. He’ll see Merlin’s damp brow at a feast and instead of giving him a wicked grin he’ll stop whatever he’s doing and smile unabashed and fond. It’s the same way he looks when Merlin tells him he’s a good king, or that he’s proud, as if he’s been given an unexpected gift and isn’t sure what to do with his pleasure. He’s _giving_ Arthur something with this, even if he isn’t sure what. He’s building their trust back up.

When a month passes and he still hasn’t been told to come, Merlin wonders a little wildly if he could rub against the sheets some night when he’s alone until he comes and pass it off as being overcome in his sleep (even though he’d woken up three nights before with his hand fisted already around the base of his cock, hips twitching up towards nothing), but—Arthur told him not to lie, and not to come, and he hasn’t stopped the latter order, so Merlin doesn’t begin to imagine disobeying the first is acceptable. He grits his teeth and fills a tub with cold water and steps into it every morning he’s alone in his room, shivering and bringing his painful arousal down to something he can manage.

Six weeks and Merlin’s cock and balls feel sore even when he’s not aroused at all, like the constant rush of blood and buildup has bruised them. Arthur’s mouth, at its most gentle, is all he can take, after sobbing trying to fuck him and Arthur hushing apologies into his hair while he came down from it. Now, when Arthur teases him, it’s mostly fingers inside him, or Arthur’s cock, but Arthur seems to tire of teasing, and sometimes just holds Merlin, tucking Merlin’s head under his chin and whispering about quiet, inconsequential things until Merlin isn’t thinking of anything at all but the sound of his voice.

Two months and four days and Merlin walks into Arthur’s chambers one evening and just drops to his knees and presses his face to Arthur’s thigh to breathe, because he’s tired and shaky and almost came just running into someone by accident. “Please,” he chokes out, because he’s said it before, but maybe it will work this time.

“Shh,” says Arthur, stroking through his hair. “You’ve done so well, come on, can you stand?” Merlin blinks up at him. Arthur laughs and stands up, offers him a hand and pulling him to his feet. “Come on, to the bed.”

When they get there Arthur dumps him on his back and strips him carefully, easing the cloth off him and away from his cock, kissing him gently just below his navel, as close as Merlin will let him get without squirming, before straightening to strip himself with much less care. “Are we—?” Merlin asks, eyes wide.

“Shh,” Arthur says again, and urges him over to his side, facing away, just as they were the night this all started, only switched. “Give me the oil?”

Merlin hands it over without thinking, and then Arthur’s cool, slippery fingers are swirling around his entrance and then slipping inside, stretching him a little and then working to find the spot that makes his vision white out a bit and stroking over it again and again while Merlin jerks and twitches, gasping and eyes watering with the need. Arthur kisses the back of his neck, his hair, his temple, his mouth when Merlin twists, letting out little soothing noises that Merlin would tease him for another time. When Merlin can’t bear it, when he’s about to grab Arthur’s hand and beg him to stop so Merlin can talk himself down again, Arthur brushes just a little bit closer and whispers “Come” in his ear.

It’s like being turned inside out, like his magic is burning up his veins, like he’s drowning, and he chokes on air, unable to even scream it out and holding on to the sound of Arthur’s voice and the feeling of his fingers still stroking inside, getting every last drop he’s been holding on to out of him. He loses time, though he’s not sure if he ever really loses consciousness, and when he comes back, cock still twitching with the last of its release, he’s panting with his face turned into his own arm and Arthur’s kissing softly up and down his neck, fingers still stroking inside. Merlin’s oversensitive, but he’s been sensitive for weeks and weeks, now, and it feels good to have Arthur so close, so he doesn’t pull away. “There you are,” Arthur murmurs, sensing some change in Merlin’s breathing.

“Did I—is it okay now?” he gasps out, too tired for any other words. He feels _empty_ , and the sheets in front of him are a soaked mess when he reaches out to feel them.

“Here, clean yourself and the bed up,” says Arthur, checking him as if for injuries, and Merlin whispers the spell he’s used to doing around Arthur now, one of the few he dares in his presence even though while promising to tell the truth most of the stories of what he’s done over the years have come out. “Are you okay? Lost you for a bit there.”

There’s a hint of smugness, but mostly he just sounds tender and quiet and Merlin doesn’t have enough energy left to roll over, let alone argue with him. “I’m fine. Are we fine? Am I forgiven?”

“That wasn’t this was,” says Arthur, and wraps a sure arm around him just as Merlin is starting to wonder if he still has to do more. “At first I was angry and then … you just gave it to me.”

And maybe, Merlin thinks, drowsy and almost asleep already even though he knows the conversation is important, it doesn’t matter quite what he was giving, what Arthur saw that’s made him so unusually gentle with him these past weeks instead of rough-and-tumble like they always have been in bed. “I’d give you anything. Albion, the world, myself, anything you ask for,” he mumbles, drifting off.

Arthur kisses him, just once more on the temple. “I believe you,” he whispers, and Merlin falls asleep.


End file.
